


Every Line Has Two Ends

by TheLocket



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Endgame, F/M, Feels, Fix-It, M/M, Multi, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Endgame, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-07 03:48:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18612499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLocket/pseuds/TheLocket
Summary: *WARNING* *POST-ENDGAME* *SPOILERS*Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes promised to be there for each other. 'Til the end of the line. But now that Steve has changed his own timeline, what does that promise mean? Some people are lucky enough to get two great loves. In this case, maybe Steve will be lucky enough to have two great lives as well.





	1. Old Friends

**_ BUCKY _ **

Five seconds. _I’ll miss you,_ Bucky said. To an observer, it was only supposed to be five seconds. On their timeline.

But Bucky knew better. Steve looked at him with those eyes and he knew, immediately. It felt obvious. So he said it and then waited at the platform for what he knew, without any explanation, was coming next. Bruce counted down, faking his calm. Sam shifted, jittery. But Bucky didn’t move, didn’t say anything. He just waited.

The slight flicker along the edge of the forest would be imperceptible to anyone else. Was it his enhanced senses, or was Bucky just expecting it?

Sam wasn’t, but Bucky couldn’t find the words—he just inclined his head to indicate where Steve had reappeared. And then tried not the listen to the conversation that followed. He had to admit, though: Sam looked damn good with that shield.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you need a ride or something?” Sam asked, fidgeting with the bulkiness of Steve’s shield strapped to his forearm. No, it was his shield now, Bucky corrected himself. That shield belonged to the Captain America. The new Captain America. Sam.

“How do you think I got here?” Steve asked. That same wicked twinkle in his eye. It felt like ice, like cryo, a shard in Bucky’s chest.

“I dunno. This is probably just a stop on your morning marathon,” Sam said. “You might be over a hundred but you’re still Captain America.”

“Not anymore,” Steve said, and it was that forced earnest tone. Bucky knew that voice. It brought back the acrid scent of the battlefield, the real battlefield with Germans and guns and humans. That was the voice of Captain America. 

It also meant that Steve Rogers was a fucking liar. But then again, Bucky always knew that.

“Can we have a minute, Sam?” Steve asked, his voice light again. Another forced modulation in tone. Bucky would vomit, if he hadn’t trained himself not to; the bile was already rising in his throat.

Sam glanced between the two of them, and something like shame flitted across his face. Bucky knew that look: it was that of a human in Steve’s presence, awe at Captain America’s unfailing selflessness and shame at one’s own innate selfishness. Of course Sam would be conflicted about this turn of events, the scales balancing between grief for Steve and elation at his new role. 

For Bucky, the scales tipped all one direction.

In response to Steve’s polite request, Sam shuffled away—Bucky hardly even noticed. Two feet in front of him and he could barely see. This was how it happened, a tunnel in his vision, black around the edges. It was good for the Winter Soldier on missions, the thrum of adrenalin focusing on one thing. One person. The mission: In this case, Steve. Well, Steve had always been his mission. 

He looked at him now, and it looked like he staring down a scope at him. Too close, too far away at the same time, his enhanced vision for once unkind to Steve.

The bone structure was much the same, the piercing eyes unchanged if slightly dimmer. The stoop to the shoulders, well, that was familiar and made Bucky’s chest tight with older, fonder memories untouched by war.

But it was Steve. Gone for barely more than five seconds, and Bucky had missed him. 

“So,” Steve said. He glanced somewhat pointedly at the bench next to him.

“So,” Bucky repeated. He didn’t sit. Then they would be too old men sitting on a bench watching the water. Only one of them looked it, though, but that was fair: Only one of them had lived it. 

“Buck . . .”

“Don’t,” he cut him off, cutting the familiar cadence in half. “I heard.” He swallowed, somewhat thickly, hoping Steve wouldn’t notice. “What you said to Sam. And you’re right. He deserves the shield.”

Bucky nodded vaguely in that direction. They probably had a whole audience. Would Sam be explaining this to Bruce? Or did he, too, already get it. That sinking feeling in his gut, the feeling of a ninety-foot drop just waiting under his feet.

Last time, he yelled all the way down. He knew he was losing Steve. So he screamed.

This time he was more civil. _I’ll miss you._ What a stupid thing to say. He felt the rage bubble in him, carbonation in his veins. The arm whirred quietly, anticipating violence with grim pleasure. Even though this was Shuri’s creation, he couldn’t help but think of it that way: The arm craved death. Always did, always would.

Was Steve’s hearing still good enough to catch the cybernetic sound, or had that, too, dulled with age?

“Buck . . .” Steve said again, and Bucky felt again the urge to repeat Steve’s name back to him, a call and response he had completed his entire life. The unspoken word soured Bucky’s mouth, and for a moment he lived those years without Steve. Rewinding nearly a century in a world where Steve was and he wasn’t, not really. Where Steve lived with that shiny ring on his finger and Bucky killed with a black muzzle around his throat.

Bucky risked just one more glance back towards Sam and Bruce, who were shadows under the canopy of forest, both muted green, one more so that the other. They were still. Waiting. Watching.

So was Steve. So it would fall to him, to Bucky, to find his own closure. This could be his last conversation with Steve. They were on different paths now, alternate timelines. This could be the last time their lines would intersect.

“Do you remember what it was like?” Bucky asked. “Waking up from the ice fifteen years ago?”

Steve nodded solemnly and Bucky wanted to hit him for that. He wanted to be angry, and then realized that he _was_ angry. Metallic scraping rang in his ears as the plates in his shoulder shifted. With the fire in his blood, he felt like he could rip the entire world to shreds. 

“And seeing her again?” Bucky pressed. The dissonant sound was closer now, more immediate, and it took a moment for him to place it: He was grinding his teeth, clenching his jaw so tightly that the molars were close to cracking.

“Buck . . .”

“That’s how this is for me,” Bucky said as simply as he could, turning to go. Turning so he wouldn’t be facing Steve, wouldn't have to look at him. Because those eyes were too sharp, still. 

Before he could take a step, he felt a hand on his arm, the flesh one. And he knew that feeling anywhere, the slight rift in his chest. Like fault lines, tectonic plates shifting and shattering just from the touch of skin to skin.

“Don’t—“

“You chose this,” Bucky said, and suddenly he felt winded. Breath jutted out of him in short gasps. He knew his body could run miles without getting this winded, but one syllable from Steve and it was like he was fucking drowning. “And I knew. I knew the second you stepped into this forest that you wouldn’t be coming back.”

“But I did,” Steve said, like the words were hard to say. Maybe they were. Maybe they felt like knives scraping along his throat on the way out, taking bits of him with them. That’s how it felt for Bucky.

“Sure,” Bucky said. What he didn’t say: after. All those years. All those years living another life. Living with her. _Living_.

Steve’s hand tightened on Bucky’s, and even though it didn’t quite feel the same, the literal skin and flesh different from how Steve’s hand had ever felt to Bucky—it felt exactly the same.

“If you think for a moment I would ever choose to live in a world without you then you don’t know me at all,” Steve said, his voice rough. With age or emotion? Bucky couldn’t tell. That voice in his head, the sour one that ached to pick a fight, told him it was all a lie. That Steve was faking, to make him feel better. That twisted voice told him to accuse him, to say awful things. One last fight with Steve.

“But you did,” Bucky said. He tasted salt and wasn’t sure if he was biting his lip or if he was swallowing tears. Deep emotion to be kept deep inside. "You . . . picked her. You decided to live in a world with her where I wasn't."

“Buck . . . You were there. You were always there,” Steve said, brows drawing together.

Bucky whirled to look at Steve, at those wide blue eyes.

_ “What?” _


	2. Hello, My Darling

_** STEVE, FIVE SECONDS EARLIER ** _

For a final mission, returning the six stones to their original timelines was uneventful. After a life anything but, Steve thought he would like uneventful—the ease of things clicking into place. But part of him had been gearing up for one last big mission. It was almost _too_ easy.

Jump one brought him to 2014 and he worked backwards, using the stones sparingly. Thor had warned him about that, but it wasn’t like he could fly a spaceship by himself. (He admitted, grimly to himself, that his flying record was somewhat spotty when it came to crash-landings.) Perhaps the Guardians would do right by the Power Stone—without Thanos chasing them, they could keep it. Only time would tell.

Vormir brought a welcome surprise: As he appeared with the Soul Stone, a dark hooded figure materialized behind him.

“If you leave the Stone, you doom me to an eternity as its Watcher. I beg of you, take that power and go.”

The voice was so familiar that Steve didn’t even have to turn. With the promise that Thanos would never come to collect it, and it really _would_ be an eternity of hell for the Red Skull, well, Steve continued onwards with something of a skip in his step.

Then back to 2013, and a quick trip to Asgard, where a queen was waiting with a knowing expression that somehow reminded Steve of Loki.

Back on Earth in 2012, the Ancient One accepted the Time Stone with a small smile.

“An irony, I think, that you’ve come to return this to me,” she said, extending a hand. "The man out of time, wielding it himself to set things to right."

“Ma’am," Steve replied, his voice sounding clipped even to himself, "as Avengers, we only make promises we are able to keep.”

“And are you still?” she asked, returning the stone to its necklace. “An Avenger, that is?”

Steve lifted the Tesseract. Let that be her answer.

Giving Sitwell the scepter was a tense moment, especially with his need to embrace Steve and whisper in his ear. But perhaps he would still get his comeuppance, still. For being an evil Nazi agent, and his part in what happened to Bucky . . .

Steve gripped the remaining stone close. Bucky . . .

No time for that, though: There was still the mission to complete. One final mission. Perhaps the most important of all, protecting both timelines they spun off.

And then the 70s and SHIELD, where Steve ducked Howard and an all-too-sharp agent who had seen him in an elevator. But the Tesseract was back where it belonged.

And then—that was it. The mission was done.  All the missions, in fact. The last one. It was over. 

Three jumps. Four vials of Pym Particles. All six stones, returned to their place in the timeline. He held the final vial between thumb and forefinger, examining it. Contemplating it, and its power.

And paused.

_I’ll miss you_ , Bucky had said.

“That son of a bitch,” Steve breathed. “He knew.” He knew before Steve even did. 

_And I’ll miss him too_ , Steve thought, but he didn’t dare say it aloud. Because this last jump, it could be the last one. Even as he glanced at the spare vials of Pym Particles housed at SHIELD. 

A voice down the corridor, one he recognized, jolted him from his reverie. _That_ was the one calling him, from another thirty years in the past. 

One final jump. And then it would be over.

 

* * *

 

_** PEGGY, FIVE SECONDS LATER ** _

This was the last vial. The red liquid caught the fading light reflecting off the East River.

Peggy held it, clutched it tight, and then with shaking hands unscrewed the cap.

“Goodbye, my darling,” she whispered, and she finally felt the tears she had been holding back warm her cheeks.

“Not sure you want to do that,” came a voice. A warm, confident voice. A voice like a sunrise, like a hot drink, like a tight handhold, palm against palm. The voice continued: “No telling what my blood will do to the fish down there.”

Peggy glanced up and startled. But there was no denying: It was him. And then she felt his warm fingers on her hand, solid, strong, _there_. Physically there, in a way that made her stomach jump and heat rise in her. 

_ “Steve?” _

He held the vial in her hands, cupping his fingers around her own to keep the glass upright. Not a drop spilled. He was calm and steady, and smiling so broadly and beautifully that it quite literally stole Peggy’s breath.

“Hi, Peg,” he said.

He stumbled backwards a half a step, and belatedly Peggy registered that it was _her_ fist that had made contact with his jaw. She knew by how her knuckles throbbed; he had barely moved, and the mark was fading as fast as it had appeared, healing and purpling before her eyes.

“Peg—“

She struck him again and pulled back for another go, but before she could get in a third his other arm was gently wrapping around her wrist to hold both hands to her sides safely. Passers by on the Brooklyn Bridge were staring, curious glances over shoulders.

“And here I was, thinking you’d be happy to see me,” Steve said lightly. His eyes crinkled.

“How—" Peggy struggled against his grasp, hating the way he made her feel small and weak. Hating that, deep down, she didn’t hate it at all.

Steve, gone for years now, back the second she pieced her life back together and tried to move on. This impromptu funeral—a meaningless, potentially dangerous gesture, chucking the last vial of Steve's blood into the river before Howard Stark could experiment on it or Fennoff could steal it for his cronies or . . . or . . 

But now she knew. She would have been able to move on, to build a different life. Maybe not better, maybe not as good, but a good life still nonetheless. But in a moment . . .  Having him back . . .

"How dare . . . " she repeated again, breath short.

“What can I say, I’ve got a lot of nerve,” Steve said, brows quirking. He had the indecency to look away as if bashful, and the ghost of a blush crossed his cheeks. Even his lips seemed pinker, flushed.

Peggy realized she was staring at his mouth with a start, mostly because his tongue darted out to moisten his lips and movement made her quite literally shiver.

A glance back up to his eyes betrayed that he had realized her fixation, and in a moment Steve was drawing her closer by the wrists that he held. Their bodies pressed together, low at her hips along the firm breadth of his thigh. He held her gaze, those seawater eyes intense, pupils blown wide. She could smell him now, his heady scent of soap and warmth and _him_.

“Oh, you!” Peggy growled, and Steve released her hands, holding them up in a show of innocence.

“Yes, it’s me.” The words hung in the air and Peggy felt them, the pressure of his voice in her ears, the timbre of his voice shaking her very bones.

“And?” Peggy asked, straightening her skirt from his embrace, fighting to stay aloof.

He looked at her for clarification. Peggy paused to close the vial and return it to her purse. She fought the impulse to fix her hair, which was stupid. She could tell from the hungry look in his eyes that she looked perfect, and good of him to be smart enough to notice. 

“Well,” she elaborated, drawing the moment out, simply enjoying his attention on her, “I suppose you have something smart to say, since you’ve had years to think of it.”

“It’s been more than that for me, Peg.” Steve sounded a touch sad even, at that, but the flicker of fun was back in his eyes after a moment. _This_ was what she loved about Steve, who held his passions so deep. Not his perfect appearance or his stalwart ideals or even his unflinching kindness. No, she loved the way that he would come alive for _her_. 

Her body knew that look, responded, and she felt a flush of heat as he continued in that deep voice of his, “But I suppose I do have a line or two prepared.”

“And?” Peggy’s voice caught in her throat. 

She imagined, briefly, taking him right there on he Brooklyn Bridge, within view of the Manhattan high rises. The way the setting sun reflected off the sharp edges of his cheekbones. His hands, now casually resting on the railing of the bridge to trap her close to him, promised a large, strong, encompassing grasp around the smallest point of her waist. 

And his lips . . . She watched his tongue again. He was doing this to tease her, and every inch of her knew that _she_ was the one making him do it. His eyes flicked to her, asking permission to continue and she nodded without thinking about it. _Go on, Captain, make me yours. Because_ you _are_ mine _._

“Well,” he said, feigning casual. She watched him glance around, clocking the edges of the bridge. Showing off, really, his perfect profile. The squareness of his jaw. The absurd length of his lashes. She followed the taught line or his torso down his exposed forearm, the slight embossing of a vein pulsing there. She knew every muscle by feel and here he was. Posing, for her. 

Peggy felt the quickening in her blood descend, from where it pulsed in her throat down the thrumming in her chest to lower. Her breath caught in her throat. _This. Now._ And his eyes drifted, as her blood did, down the front of her body. She loved that, soaking in his gaze as a flower would rays of sunlight.

“It’s a Saturday night,” he continued, eyes flicking back up to hers in a brash way that made her nearly gasp. “I figured I should ask if my best girl was free for a dance.”

She opened her mouth to answer him, but a small smirk crossed his face and she thought—or her body knew—what she had to do.

She punched him again, this time in the mouth. After all, it had been so long and he had been a right fool, crashing his plane like that. 

Plus, she would have plenty of time to make it up to him.

As Steve smiled broadly and wiped the blood from his lip (Peggy internally crowed: she had made Captain America bleed!), she regarded him with a hip cocked out and basked in the way his eyes followed the curve of her body.

“So, I suppose you’re back with another downright stupid idea,” she said.

“Yes,” Steve said, slinging an arm around her. His hand, as promised, found her waist and held her close as they began their walk back to Manhattan. The orange of the sun made it look like the buildings were aflame. "As a matter of fact, I've got two."

“And those are?”

“Marry you,” he said.

“What a rash proposal,” she responded, providing no answer. “And?”

Steve drew a slow breath. She felt it, felt him: His chest rose and fell against her.

“And,” he said slowly, eyes scanning the horizon beneath absurd lashes, “get Bucky back.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrapping up some loose ends and drooling over Steve Rogers. You know, the average Friday night.


	3. Reinforcements

_** STEVE, THE NEXT MORNING ** _

The morning sunshine clung to Peggy's bare skin like honey. Steve didn't—couldn't—stop his gaze from clinging unto every strip of skin, hungrily.

"Enjoying the view?" she asked archly, striding across the bedroom to the empty spot beside him where she perched, atop the covers, robe falling off one shoulder. She looked like something he had studied at a museum, like Bernini had finally breathed life into the greatest of his creations.

He grazed fingertips along her shoulder, stroking as lightly as he could along the arc. She shivered slightly. Then, he followed the same path with his lips, tracing the boundary of her robe without breaching it.

"Yes," he breathed into her ear, moving lips to her neck. "I am."

"I was _talking_ about the apartment," she replied, voice dry. He smiled into her neck, in a way she was sure to feel, and continued his exploration of the small scrap of visible skin. It was, all at once, not nearly enough and way too much. "But I suppose I should take the compliment."

To be fair, Howard Stark's Manhattan apartment was not like any apartment Steve had ever visited. They had the entire floor to themselves and, in the night, Steve had thrown open the wide glass doors between bedroom and terrace. Daylight woke them both, and now the sheers were undulating with a soft breeze.

As Peggy settled herself and drew her knees up onto the bed, the robe pulled her body, revealing a wide stretch of thigh.

Steve's eyes flicked down and then back up. Gauging her reaction. While they had slept together, they had not yet "slept together," a glaring error that Steve was anxious to correct. As he pushed himself upward from beneath the sheets and towards Peggy's lap, he knew she would be able to see just how _anxious_ he was.

The mischievous smile on Peggy's lips urged him onwards, and then his lips were on that area of her thigh. It was all-consuming, this need to consume her. And yet, how his attention pulled him. He wanted to lavish every pleasure on this perfect square inch of her. On every perfect square inch, one by one. And yet, he wanted to run his hands all along every bit of her in a moment, soak in every atom at once.

She startled him with a small noise, something more than a gasp of pleasure caught in her throat and he forged onwards to uncharted territories, sneaking fingers slowly up and under the thin fabric covering her.

Another gasp, a shifting of her hips, and the shoulder of her gown finally fell, exposing one breast like Aphrodite of Syracuse.

" _Steve_." 

He had heard her say his name hundreds of times, thousands of times. In the years they had been apart, his perfect memory had played it back for him, recreating the exact sound.

But never, in all those times, had she said it quite like this.

And again, her need laid bare in that syllable: " _Steve_."

He surged forward, torn between the rhythm his fingers were playing upon her body and the newly-bared flesh where he pressed his lips.

Her hands in his hair, scraping along his scalp so that _he_ was the one gasping with pleasure. Suddenly he was aware that the boxers he had kept on to maintain the pretense of propriety were no longer necessary.

And, then, abruptly, those fingernails were drawing his head back by his hair.

He froze.

"Stop," she said simply. A command that Steve obeyed in the extreme, drawing himself back so that he was no longer touching her. He felt his chest rising and falling, and felt her eyes upon his bare skin there, but did not move from his new place along the pillows.

A sigh, and she drew her robe across her body, pulling the sash tight.

"I—Peg—"

"This was what you wanted," Peggy said. And yes, Steve remembered, those hushed encounters in tents along the front line, fevered kisses and Peggy begging him for more. _We'll do this right_ , Steve had promised, and while they had found ways to end the evening properly, they still hadn't gotten to this.

"Before," Steve said. "But now . . ."

"Well then," Peggy replied, somewhat sharply. "That's the issue, isn't it? I knew 'Steve before' . . . " She stood and walked towards the wall of French doors, shutting each one of them quietly but deliberately. This done, she turned back to him, brushing her hair behind her ears. "I don't know 'Steve now.'"

She walked to the door, and from her showy stride Steve knew that she knew exactly where he was looking. The slight sting of rejection was mollified in that, at least.

"But I'm rather looking forward to getting to know him," she said. She paused at the doorway, turned, and winked. Continuing her walk down the hall she called back, "You'll want to grab a shower, I think. Company's coming, as we're rescue the Sergeant post-haste."

 

* * *

 

_** PEGGY, TWENTY MINUTES LATER ** _

She had forgotten Steve's nesting instinct, the one that had filled her flat with soft blankets and stolen sweets. Even now, as the scent of pancakes drifted down the hall, she felt in a haze of happiness and pleasure.

Well, nearly pleasure. Had it been a mistake, to throw his own words back at him? He had shown up, with no explanation, years after she had listened to him die on the static of that radio. And who was she to know who he was?

No, this was responsible, as her brother had warned her: Never jump into bed with a bloke you don't know. And frankly, she didn't know this Steve.

The knock at the door roused her and she walked over, nearly forgetting she was still clad only in a short dressing gown and nothing else. Well, that had been convenient earlier, when Steve had nearly made her—

Enough, she told herself, and threw open the door.

 

* * *

 

 

_** STEVE ** _

At the sound of the door, Steve didn't exactly run. More like took advantage of his speed, which meant that he appeared with a slight wake in the hallway that made leaves of the Birds of Paradise in the corner wave. It also meant he arrived just in time to see Peggy letting in a slight woman with severely parted eyes and light eyes.

Immediately upon entering the apartment, the woman launched herself at Peggy and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her lips.

"Eh, English," the woman said, upon separating. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes." She tugged on the neckline of Peggy's robe, eyebrows dancing up and down. "Not really making it hard for me—hey, I appreciate that. We could at least go to the bedroom first. Fancy digs, this Stark's got."

Steve felt his own eyebrows hit his hairline.

"Steve," Peggy said quietly, brushing a hand across her lips as though to wipe away any memory of the kiss. "This is my . . . Angie."

* * *

 

 

_** PEGGY ** _

So perhaps that worked both ways: if she didn't know 'Steve Now' maybe he didn't quite not 'Peggy Now.'

To his credit, Steve seemed unfazed, His eyes flicked between the two of them, and then glanced down to how Peggy was holding her robe firmly closed.

"Steve Rogers," he said, extending a hand. "So. You two have a history."

"Yes," Peggy cut in resolutely. "A _history_."

"Yeah, yeah, sure, we're toast," Angie said. She flicked her eyes to Peggy, sweeping them shamelessly over her barely-clothed form. "Not that I don't still miss her—"

"Angie!" Peggy cut in, wishing she were wearing shoes with which to subtly stomp on Angie's feet.

"—but now she's totally Sousa's girl."

"Sousa?" Steve sounded taken aback at this, though. He crossed his arms across his chest.

"John and I haven't even kissed!" Peggy cut in, trying to keep her tone firm rather than squawking. It was . . . partially successful.

"Yeah," Steve said, sounding morose. "But _we_ haven't even . . . 'kissed.'"

"We've kissed," Angie cut in eagerly. Peggy sighed and put a hand to her temple. She felt a headache coming on.

"So, do I get an introduction?" Steve asked.

"Angie Martinelli," she said, extending a small hand that Steve shook.

"She's an actress," Peggy supplied.

"That's awful kind of you, English," Angie said, sounding chuffed. Then, to Steve: "I work at the automat down on eighth."

She considered Steve for a moment.

"Well isn't that funny," Angie said. "Her last boyfriend was Captain America. And wasn't his last name Rogers, too? And—"

She broke off abruptly, face going pale.

"Angie, let's go talk for a moment in the parlor . . . " With that, Peggy grabbed her ex by the elbow and dragged her off.

 

* * *

 

**_ STEVE _ **

Later in the day—after the pancakes were demolished and Angie told him some very long stories with many words in them, all spoken in a single breath as Peggy finally dressed—the rest of the cavalry arrived.

Howard immediately hugged Steve as though he were attempting to climb him, arms and legs wrapped around him bodily. It took several moments to coax him to let go. And there was a man named Jarvis, who looked like he had dealt with Stark shit his entire existence and now anything merely bored him. (Steve shook his hand vigorously and, as Howard's insistence that he was The Captain America, Jarvis even blushed a bit and said, "Oh dear. What an honor.")

The maps were laid out in the study, and Howard nursed a glass of whiskey as they talked plans.

"So, first of all, Howard," Steve said. "Can you get us there?"

"Not a problem," he said airily.

"Based on what Dottie said . . . " Peggy supplied.

"Well, that's where Angie comes in," Steve said.

"Quick study," Peggy said, and that look she shot him made him recall those moments that morning—at the exact moment that Angie said, "Me?"  


"Yes, you," Peggy said to Angie. "Now, I wouldn't be asking if this weren't . . . "

"Oh English, I'll do it," Angie said, nodding vigorously. "Although my Russian accent ain't so great."

"Not a problem," Peggy and Steve said at the same time. Again, that same rush of heat. They locked eyes and smiled. At all the staring from their newly-assembled friends, Peggy blushed, biting her lip and looking down, so Steve took it upon himself to explain.

"These Black Widows," he said. "They're trained to speak just like you or me. We can make you look the part. Then it's really just about walking in the front door."

For the first time all day, Howard pried his eyes off Steve and looked at Angie.

"So, you're an actress?" he asked. "Hi, I'm Howard Stark."

"We have a plan?" Jarvis cut in.

"Yes," Steve said. He sighed, deeply, that same sigh. This was something he had to do. If he was being selfish now . . . well, Steve didn't do things partway. "All of you can walk away now."

"You wouldn't be asking this if it weren't important," Howard said. Somehow, in the five seconds, he had maneuvered himself to be sitting in Angie's lap.

"Alright. Everyone knows their jobs," Steve said. "Tomorrow, we fly to Siberia. Stark, make sure to get a plane that sits six. We'll be returning with Bucky."

He stood and left the room, pausing just out of sight. It was rude, using his super-hearing for eavesdropping, but he needed to know if what he was asking was too much. Trying to be inconspicuous and casual was impossible with his bulk, but he leaned against the wall, listening.

From inside the study, he heard Angie: "I see what you mean. Wowza. When he gets all cocky like that?"

"Yes," Peggy replied, sounding a bit stunned. Oh, did he wish for x-ray vision to go with his hearing, to see the blush that was likely rising in her cheeks, spreading down to flush the pale skin of her neck, of the flesh exposed by her low neckline . . .

And then, Jarvis, quietly, "Sir, what's a Bucky?"

"I'll explain on the ride," Howard replied.

Despite it all, Steve smiled to himself. He would pay good money to hear that conversation.


	4. Like Puzzle Pieces

_** PEGGY, THE NEXT DAY ** _

The second the plane took off, it all made sense to Peggy. Why they were doing it.

It was like some switch flipped for Steve, and he was suddenly Captain America again. Combat ready, shoulders braced and ready to fist-fight the world. He was wearing a strange new suit, something he unpacked from the sack that he had carried. Peggy felt the desire to run her fingers over it, to feel the scale-like pattern.

But now, seeing him, she understood.

She had never really seen him on a mission without Bucky. The Commandos had shielded her from it—for that last mission against Red Skull. She had been off, intent on saving the world, and figured that Steve could save himself from his grief.

But watching him stand, slightly bowed to avoid hitting his head, behind Howard and Jarvis in the cockpit . . . it was painful.

How many years had passed for him? It seemed like so many more. Years, without her, and without Bucky. And still, he had not adjusted.

He held himself slightly askew, hands on his belt. She wanted to appreciate it, his bulk, the way his shoulders brushed against the low walls of the plane.

But it was like a ghost limb, the way that his hips tilted slightly, feet pointing to the right.

Bucky had been his right-hand man. Peggy knew that, had seen that from the moment in the bar when both swiveled as one being when she walked in. Like two marionettes, strings attached to one another.

And he was Bucky's left-hand. The idea that Bucky had survived the fall, and Steve had survived the crash, to live on without their missing pieces.

This mission was needed, for them all. To make them all whole again.

"Why don't you take a seat," Peggy said. She didn't even remember consciously deciding to unbuckle her seatbelt and walk to the front of the plane, but there she was, lurking by Steve's left. "Edwin is the best pilot I know. We're in good hands."

"Gee, thanks, Peg!" Howard called back, but Peggy ignored him. Her hand was on Steve's shoulder. He probably couldn't feel it through his body armor, but she saw him glance down, stare at the hand, and swivel his body back towards her. Twisting away from the empty space on his right.

A tight smile stretched across his face.

"I can't believe I have you back," he said, his voice husky and almost impossible to hear over the plane's engines. What he didn't say, though, was that he needed Bucky back. Maybe differently. Probably not, but perhaps it was a different need. Regardless, Peggy knew it was just as all-consuming; that's how Steve loved.

"We got lucky," Peggy said, her fingers stroking the shoulder of his suit. He glanced down at the movement.

"Luck has nothing to do with it," he said. There was a grimness in his eyes, a hard set to his jaw. Peggy couldn't help it—she took a step back. This was a different Steve, hardened and polished down by the world. This was not the man choking back tears on a broken bar stool. This was a man who had lost everything, and was prepared to lose more.

"You'll tell me, one day," she said, her voice equally quiet. But she knew he would hear.

He jerked his head in a tense nod. That muscle at the corner of his jaw twitched. But he made no move to return to his seat.

"Whatever you did," Peggy said, "in those years we were apart."

She saw Edwin and Howard lean back slightly, trying to eavesdrop.

Steve said nothing, but now his eyes looked like shards of glaciers, ice floes. She was so used to the soft warmth of them, the greenish haze like calm ocean waters mingling with the bright blue of the sky. But the way they hardened made them almost unrecognizable.

"You had to do it," Peggy finished.

In that moment, Steve turned, completely facing her.

"Yes," he said, the sharpness in his face evident in his voice. It scared her in that moment, watching those missing years etch into his face like something carved into the side of a mountain. A man, a monument. "I did."

 

* * *

 

**_ STEVE _ **

Forgetting would have been kind, but he wasn't allowed to forget.

This second trip to Siberia, it wasn't the same path. Last time, he flew from Germany. Last time, the quinjet was barely a low hum in his ears. And last time, one row behind him . . .

Peggy's hand on his shoulder, a barely-there pressure, jolted him to the present. He realized he was glancing behind him. His stomach dropped, like he had missed a step.

"Steve?" she asked, her voice gentle. And suddenly he was back in that bar, after the blitz, pretending he could get drunk. Hoping, desperately, to just dull it all for a second. That unending pain, the not-there feeling, of being unable to forget the screaming in his ears, but of constantly remembering. _He's not here. He's gone. He'll never be here again._

Peggy's hand on his cheek, and he was back again, in that plane. He had taken those stones. He had made himself something of a god, decided to rewrite time, to bend the progression of events to his will. So he could get everything. And he would get everything.

* * *

 

 

_** PEGGY ** _

Angie, it turned out, was actually a decent actress.

It helped that Steve remembered the code for the bunker—another shiver from Peggy, wondering just what she had missed, a question catalogued for another day—and that Peggy had paid enough attention to Dottie.

"Hey soldier," Angie said to the first guard they met. He barely glanced down at her.

" сообщить ," he barked out.

"Oh, doll, Russian really isn't my thing any more. Awful barbaric language, isn't it," Angie said airily, and if she didn't nearly sound so much like Dottie that Peggy flinched a bit. "I've got these two for my pal Arnim. Doc Fennoff said he might find that one . . . "—she nodded towards Steve—". . . particularly interesting."

So Peggy hadn't know that Zola was dirty, and that he had been splitting time between LA's newest SHIELD facility and this Hydra bunker in Siberia. How Steve had known . . . well, that list for later was growing quite long.

The agent was shifty, but not as much as he should have been, and, after he locked Steve and Peggy in what could only be described as a giant cage, he even flicked a glance at Angie. She glowed at him, batting her lashes and everything.

Peggy silently hoped that this Hydra guard wasn't good with faces, and wouldn't remember Angie's once all this was over.

Then Steve just had to break his shackles. (He went to help Peggy, but she had already picked hers—really, had he forgotten that she could handle herself?) A few well-placed punches to the cage doors and it was mere moments to take down the posted guards.

She caught his eye, as he roundhouse-kicked a guard down and she punched another, straddling his chest to keep him down and deliver a knock-out blow. And it was almost like it was. He even smiled, his eyes even seemed to defrost.

"I think it's this way," he said. "It's different a bit . . . but . . ."

From the look of concentration on his face, Peggy knew he was mentally mapping the facility, and followed without question.

"So this woman . . . was she a Black Widow?" Steve asked, as they crouched in a staircase to peer around the corner.

"I count three," Peggy said after scouting, and in a moment Steve had handled them swiftly and silently—jab to the throat, sidekick to the temple of the second, and a chokehold for the third. "And I suppose. She just called herself Dottie."

"And you got to see her in action?" Steve pressed, now leaning around the bend in the hall to scout once more. "It's clear."

"Yes, I suppose," Peggy said, boosting herself up to disable the hallway camera

"Thanks," Steve said, nodding at her handiwork. Strange, how they still fit together like puzzle pieces, working as a well-oiled machine.

They reached a large, solid door. It looked as though it could contain a blast of some sort, and Peggy shivered for a moment. What were they trying to keep out—or in?  


"Well, I suppose you could say that this . . . uh . . . I've kissed a Black Widow, then."

"Huh," Steve said. "Me too."

He glanced back at her, and something like a wry smile twisted his lips. Another story, another day. With a loud clang, the door opened. Steve had picked it somehow, as Peggy was distracted by his smirk.

"Oh, good lord," Peggy breathed. "Barnes."

 

* * *

_**THE ASSET** _

Cold. The metal on its bare wrists, well, if it weren't for the ice in its veins that would be easy to shatter. They left it this way, between cryo trials. The Asset knew—remembered?—that this was something to be repeated. It calmed it, with the expectation of a well-followed pattern.

It would start as it always did. Blankness and coldness creeping in, and then blackness. It would awake, hear that string of words, and it would feel a tight grip on its brain until thought was no longer possible. The Asset did not need to think. It just did.

A man and a woman came in the door, dressed strangely for handlers. They glanced over their shoulders and the man hefted the door mostly closed. So he was enchanced as well. It could tell, from the ease with which the man moved the titanium door, and the absurd largeness of the man.

The Asset waited for them to repeat the words.

But the woman ran over, and pressed the back of her hand to the Asset's bare arm. They kept it shirtless, after it destroyed too many uniforms. Shirtless, and strapped to the machine. That was mostly annoying;it would have liked to wipe the blood from the lips. 

It must have bit its tongue again when they tested the machine. It did not quite remember the test, but it knew it had happened. The Asset knew that sharp pain, the smell of the body burning from the electrical charges. But, that was how it was for the Asset. Words, and pain along its scalp, and then the Asset could just . . . be. The closest thing to rest, to peace.

The sticky, coagulating, salty mess on its lips was, as with most things associated with consciousness, annoying. The blood distracted the Asset. If it came to fighting, the Asset would free itself, and then wipe the face, before killing these two.

"He's cold," the woman said, glancing up at him with something like fear on her face. The Asset tried to place that look. It had been so long since he had to parse expressions. There was anger, aggression; those expressions meant pain and required physical acts from the Asset. The Asset knew those well. But this?

This was . . . pity?

The man ran over, and yes, he was definitely enchanced judging by the speed of his gait. Also poorly trained, as his jog had too much bounce to it. The Asset did not waste energy being light on its toes. The Asset would destroy this strange man. He didn't even seem to have any cybernetics.

The arm whirred with anticipation, as the Asset calculated the chance of winning this fight. The woman would be easy to incapacitate. She was already emotionally compromised.

But the man . . . the Asset clocked his expression and felt some sort of internal failure. The Asset's inner ear must have been damaged during whatever bloodied the face, because it felt like it was falling. Falling.

The man wore an expression that the Asset had seen, when the job was done. This usually meant mission complete, which meant clearing all irrelevant memories and then the cryo chamber.

The plates in the shoulder shifted in perverse protest. It was as if the Asset did not want the cryo chamber.

The Asset wanted . . .

"Buck . . . " The man was close, now, arms-length as the woman stepped back. His large hand, so hot, was on the Asset's face. The Asset wanted to flinch, but the fingers were warm. They brushed away the sticky mess.

Good. The fingers felt good. The Asset wanted . . .

It found itself growling. And yes, its mind caught up with the body for making this feral sound. This would be another test, another trial.

"Я готов отвечать," it said, as it was trained to say. The fingers felt strange on the lips, especially as the mouth moved. But he would say the proper words, even if these new handlers wouldn't.

"What did they—?" the woman asked, and the Asset knew that tone. It promised crying, soon, and crying could be loud. Crying was a problem to be dealt with.

The arm whined. The metal restraint around the arm groaned.

The man's hands drifted slowly down the Asset. Was he a handler, assessing if the Asset was battle-ready? He hadn't said the words, but the Asset knew what would happen if it was deemed unacceptable, so it stilled itself.

The fingers left streaks of heat down the Asset's neck, down his bare chest. Along the flesh just above the metal arm.

"We've got to get him out of here, Steve," the woman said, her voice breaking.

Yes, the man was enchanced: He broke the restraints as a normal human would crack an egg. His name was Steve. The Asset catalogued that as mission-relevant information. The Asset enjoyed this information. The Asset enjoyed? Yes, it did.

But the Asset could not stand. Too fresh out of cryo. The cold in its veins. It knew this, but the handlers didn't know this. They would be disappointed that it slumped across the chair. There was nothing the Asset could do. Its knees would not hold weight. So then, the warmth of this . . . Steve. Whatever heat he brought would be gone soon.

As the Asset's legs folded, it hoped they would let him remember this part. Steve, warm, good. "Steve" was a good sound.

Steve was over him, staring down with unbridled rage. Would Steve hit him, to express his dissatisfaction that the Asset was not mission-ready? The Asset hoped so. Then it could feel those fingers again, perhaps the broad edge of knuckles. The mouth already tasted blood; what was a bit more?

"God," Steve said instead. "Buck, what have they done to you."

But Steve—oh, did the Asset love the sound of that thought, the sound of that syllable in his head—did not hit the Asset. He reached a broad arm, warm even through his strange suit, to prop up the Asset.

The Asset heard voices that weren't there . . .

_What happened to you?_

_I joined the Army._

_Did it hurt?_

_A little._

_Is it permanent?_

_So far._

The Asset was malfunctioning. It glanced around, to ascertain if there were any possible sources for the voices. No. Something had gone wrong, when they zapped its brain like a lab experiment.

But the Asset would not say anything. Steve was holding him close, and the Asset would do anything to keep that warmth.

"It's okay, Buck," Steve said. "I promise I won't let go."


	5. The Fist of Hydra

_** PEGGY ** _

Barely anyone spoke on the ride home. Even Angie, at first energized by the "role of a lifetime" had conked out, asleep with her head on Peggy's shoulder.

And Steve rode the entire way with his arm around Barnes's shoulders.

Barnes, or at least whatever was left at him, did not look comforted. Peggy had seen them, before. The way Steve and Bucky seemed to be of one body, no strangers to physical touch. Constantly seeming to reassure the other of their proximity, hands on thighs, elbows interlocked. But now, the new Barnes had something feral in his look, like a hunted animal. And that arm looked like trouble.

But Peggy said nothing, not even when Howard asked, "You sure this a good idea?"

Returning within twenty-four hours to the sumptuous apartment with the three of them felt like years, decades had passed.

 

* * *

 

 

**_ STEVE _ **

Bucky was cold. It made Steve shudder, dredged up the only half-complete memories in his brain, of cold gurneys and limbs coated in ice and someone saying, "This guy's still alive!"

He ignored Peggy's look of concern and pulled Bucky into the full bath off the guest bedroom.

"I have to get some food," Peggy said. "I hadn't been expecting . . .company."

Steve nodded curtly, barely able to take his eyes off Bucky.

"Howard says he'll stop back with more familiar faces. He says Gabe might be in town?" Peggy tried again.

Still Steve just nodded.

"I'll take care of Bucky," he said finally, and shut the door in her face. He did not listen for how long she stood there, shocked. Perhaps he had never been this resolute with her. Or perhaps she had never been on this side of his pig-headedness.

He could apologize later. Right now, Bucky was shivering.

"We'll get you warmed up," Steve said, running the tap. He remembered finding Bucky and prying him off the table. It was much that same look, the gauntness in Bucky's cheeks, the poorly-masked terror in his eyes.

He tested the water with a hand and found it warm.

 

* * *

 

_** THE ASSET ** _

The Asset was familiar with tubs, with hosing down and rinsing off. Hydra could be strict in codes for hygiene. The Asset had not yet accumulated the requisite amount of filth (three to five days' worth) and was not covered in blood or other bodily fluids but . . .

It removed the clothing. Steve, and his warm hands, helped with this. He hesitated a bit at the Asset's trousers. Handlers did not usually pause like this, but the Asset pushed this thought down. Something about Steve . . . it did not want to probe this question, doubt Steve's legitimacy. It just wanted to keep Steve close, for some reason. It did not want to consider this reason.

More troubling: the Asset was experiencing want.

A small part of the Asset's mind—the one that had survived all this time, had told the body when to resist, to preserve itself—this part of the mind cautioned against wanting things. The Asset did not get to experience pleasure, so experiencing want foretold two outcomes: that want being denied, or twisted into something horrific.

But hesitation gone, the handler, the . . . Steve gently shucked its boxers, fingers barely glancing upon the flesh there. Steve moved slowly, and as he did this he bit his lip. It was an unconscious gesture, the Asset realized, or something meant to seem like it. Steve's cheeks turned pink, and the Asset was momentarily immobilized, imagining how warm those cheeks would be. It wanted to touch those cheeks. Perhaps . . . with its lips? What a strange want.

Only a truly good liar could fake a blush. The Asset knew this.

It stared at the cheeks, telling itself it was only trying to determine their sincerity. But Steve stared back, and there was a look wholly unlike the Asset could ever remember in those blue eyes. Something like electricity charged the air.

"Buck, can you get into the tub?" Steve asked, placing a large palm on the Asset's bare arm. The Asset realized it was shivering, and Steve was stilling that shiver.  Gently. But still, an acknowledgment that shivering was not allowed. Unacceptable, a stupid way to expend energy.

The Asset climbed into the tub and sat.

"Do . . . do you need help?" Steve asked, somewhat haltingly.

The Asset was unsure. Usually it was hosed. A few times it was scrubbed. Once, it was de-loused.

Steve knelt at the side of the tub, and then stood again to slowly removed his suit. He pulled on looser, lighter clothing then returned to the edge of the tub—the Asset had not seen him get those, which was concerning. The Asset was missing things.

The Asset waited patiently. The water was warm, and its  . . . Steve . . . was next to it, still radiating palpable warmth. Whatever would come next would be tolerable or, at the very least, worth it all.

Steve slowly unfolded a washcloth, wet it in the tub water, and then lathered it with a bar of soap.

He worked slowly, thoroughly, and soon the Asset felt the warmth across every inch of skin, warm and clean and tended to in a wholly unfamiliar way. Once, Steve even moved the metal arm gently out of the water and propped it along the far wall. That was strange. Handlers usually avoided the arm. The arm only touched to kill. And Steve did not seem afraid.

The Asset then got to experience a singular joy: a fluffy towel, magically warmed by a hot pipe.

"How's that feel, Buck?" Steve asked with a tentative smile. His eyes seemed to search the Asset's face for an answer—stupid, the Asset had perfected a blank expression and even under such strange feelings, would not break it. But . . .

The Asset wanted . . . 

 

* * *

 

 

_** STEVE ** _

He heard the voices in the hallway before the sound of keys in the lock, and placed a gentle steadying hand on Bucky. Bucky, who had on his Winter Soldier expression, a face contemplating murder, was now swaddled in the world's most expensive and softest towel.

It made Steve want to grin.

"Company's here," he said as Bucky sank into something of a fighting stance when he heard that door open. "You put on some clothes, and I'll meet you in the kitchen, sound good?"

It was a bad excuse, and Steve knew it. But seeing Bucky body's, bare, with that blank look on his face had jarred Steve. He was ashamed to have been aroused by the perfection of Bucky's body, while Bucky's mind so clearly still so far gone.

So he left, and went to the kitchen.

"Son of a bitch," Gabe said, grinning and extending a hand. "You bastard, looking like that isn't enough; you have to be immortal, too?"

"Gabe, always a pleasure," Steve said, extending a hand to shake.

"The rest are on their way," Peggy cut in, giving Steve a strange look. "Gabe was just the closest—he was visiting family in New Jersey, so Howard picked him up. Howard's off to London, for the rest."

"I'll have to thank Howard for that," Steve said, putting his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. "In fact, I think I have to thank Howard for a lot."

He sent a small smile to Peggy, willing her to remember this morning. Before she saw this side of him, when things were simple and filled with the soft morning light and Howard's expensive sheets and pleasure within his reach.

"Got any more surprises?" Gabe asked, drawing him back to the present.

"As a matter of fact . . . " Steve said, feeling his face stretching in another grin. Had he ever been this happy?

"Sergeant Barnes is here. He's just cleaning up," Peggy supplied.

"Fuck me," Gabe breathed. "You really did it all, didn't you? Saved every last person. Saved the world."

The three of them exchanged grins.

"Wow," Gabe continued. "I can't believe it. The Howling Commandos, back together again, with Captain America to thank."

There was a clatter, and all of them turned to see a pajama-clad Bucky, staring at Steve with murder in his eyes.

 

* * *

 

_** THE ASSET ** _

Captain America. So that's why Steve had looked so familiar. Why the Asset had wanted to get close.

Enemy Number One to Hydra. They had taught the Asset about him, bore it into its skull.

And it had one directive: kill upon sight.

 

* * *

 

_** PEGGY ** _

Peggy barely registered the shift in Barnes, the way he crouched to the floor. But Steve hollered out, "Get out of here, both of you!"

He waved a hand at Peggy and Gabe, and Peggy, in a split-second, decided to trust rather than question, and pulled Gabe away to the safety of the study.

 

* * *

 

_** STEVE ** _

He had relaxed too soon, he realized. The moment slowed and Steve watched as Bucky launched himself at Steve, a blur of snarling malice and murder. Steve barely had time to brace himself before Bucky caught him around his neck. The two of them crashed across the kitchen island, shattering plates and knocking over the mugs of tea Peggy had set out.

Spinning himself off the counter, Steve landed, cat-like, and held up his hands.

But somehow, as they flipped over the kitchen, Bucky had found the knife-block.

 

* * *

 

_** THE ASSET ** _

The Asset twisted the paring knife in its hand, somewhat lovingly. It could not explain this affinity for sharp objects, the strange joy of feeling the metal between its flesh fingers. It did not have many ticks, many quirks. Everything about the Asset was necessary, to serve a purpose without wasting energy. The Asset was a resource, a tool on missions.

St—Captain America, the destroyer of Hydra and Enemy Number One ( _kill upon sight, kill upon sight_ the Asset's mind chanted), stared at the knife. In a moment, he seemed to see what was coming, and lifted a hand just as the Asset threw.

 

* * *

 

_** STEVE ** _

The knife lodged itself in Steve's forearm, the pain of which barely registered. Already Steve was calculating his next move, trying to figure out how to subdue Bucky without injuring him. He remember cracking his shoulder, pulling arm from socket, and very nearly froze. He could not do that again.

But Peggy was in the other room, and Steve knew the Winter Soldier had been trained to leave no witnesses. He set his jaw and ducked Bucky's metal fist. It rang out as it contacted thegranite countertop, shattering loose shards of stone like knives.

"Bucky," Steve said, backing up. This hadn't worked last time, but . . . "It's me, it's Steve. This isn't you, this is Hydra, in your head."

And then Bucky spoke, for the first time since Siberia, his first English to Steve: " _I am Hydra_."

 

* * *

 

_** THE ASSET ** _

The metal arm struck Captain America between the eyes. A second blow cracked his zygomatic arch with a noise they could both hear. It brought the Asset strange joy, breaking Captain America's perfect cheekbones.

Violence. The entire Asset sang with the joy of violence, pounding blood its veins. It wasn't _want_  it felt, the Asset realized, it was the anticipation of violence. It was its deep coding, always right, the truth of Hydra, knowing, always correct. Bringing the Asset to its target: Enemy Number One.

This was why the Asset existed, the reason for its consciousness.

"Bucky, please," Captain America was whimpering, and that voice did strange things to the Asset, that same sensation of falling, more phantom voices.

It had to silence him to kill him.

The Asset raised its arm, the fist of Hydra, and struct Captain America in the throat. The first blow shattered his hyoid. The second crushed his windpipe.

 

* * *

 

_** STEVE ** _

Strange, how far he had come, for it to all end here. Bucky was atop him, straddling him with iron-like thighs and raining blows on his face. These same blows had shattered Howard Stark's expensive marble countertops to pebbles. Steve knew his own body wouldn't last much longer.

Steve saw black spots in his vision, felt the strength leaving him. His hands, pinned by Bucky's knees, fluttered pointlessly along Bucky's thighs. His legs jerked up and down weakly.

"Bucky . . . " he wheezed out. "Bucky . . . please . . . "

 

* * *

 

_**~~THE~~ BUCKY ** _

 

Steve gasped beneath the Asset, choking, coughing out that name over and over again. _Bucky. Bucky. Please. Help me._

The Asset raised a fist—

Voices, again. Voices that weren't there rang in the Asset's mind.

_Buck, I'm fine._ It was Steve's voice, smaller somehow, bookended by that same gasping.

_Your asthma's getting worse, Steve,_  the Asset's own voice echoed back through memory. _I'm calling the doc._

_Don't you dare, Buck, just stay with me. You . . . help me. Just. Stay. Please._

Steve, gasping, under the Asset's fist. The Asset was the one doing this . . . _he_ was doing this . . .

He lowered his fist. Glanced at it, stared at it as if shocked that it was his.

"I—" Bucky said. "Oh, god, Steve . . ."

* * *

 

 

_** PEGGY, TWO MINUTES EARLIER ** _

With Gabe safely barricaded in the study, Peggy raced to Howard's bedroom and the purse she had stowed beneath the bed. Hands shaking, she pulled out the revolver, checked the chamber, and cocked it.

Faster. She had to be faster. She ran, knocking down vases in the hallway and a plant off the side table. Her feet hammered on the expensive tile floors, and with a gasp she emerged behind the refrigerator to see Barnes, atop an unconscious Steve. Blood pooled on the ground. Barnes raised his deadly arm.

Peggy raised her arm, too, and fired. Barnes dropped.


	6. Unspoken

_**BUCKY** _

Bucky awoke.

That alone was a miracle. He awoke as _himself_. His arms weren’t tied to anything. There was nothing over his face. He awoke, and, for a second, those past couple years were a bad dream. Perhaps he just fell off that train and Steve came for him.

Steve. He could hear Steve’s voice, low and urgent, and recognized the speaker before he could recognize the words.

It filled him with warmth, the sound of Steve's voice. Like swallowing a hot beverage. He felt a small noise of contentment escape his lips, barely a breath. That voice meant Bucky was safe, he would be okay, because Steve was there and Steve was okay.

When Steve became whatever he was—Captain America, an absurd colossus of rippling muscles, the funhouse version of his true self, something distorted almost past recognition, a weapon . . . Well, Bucky knew things would change. He assumed that his life would end, shortly, because who was Bucky Barnes if not the protector of Steve Rogers? And what sort of fool tries to protect Captain America, a man who was no longer a really man at all?

All that Bucky could hope to be was a shield, and Captain America already had one of those.

So waking up, alive, himself, with Steve by his side: A miracle.

He slowly opened his eyes, which felt like lifting weights from his cheeks using just his eyelids. But he would do it, because opening his eyes meant he could look at Steve.

The phrase “a sight for sore eyes” had never been more applicable in human history, because never before had anyone’s eyes been as sore as Bucky’s, and there was nothing more of a “sight” than Steven G. Rogers, Captain America, pacing nervously in sweatpants that were, if Bucky was being honest with himself, somewhere between a gift to all those present and merely obscene.

“You said he had serum? Maybe his works differently,” Peggy was saying. “After all, it took Erskine years to perfect it. Perhaps Zola—“

“He’s gonna be fine.” Steve’s voice was hard, like sharpened steel. It roused something in Bucky, reminded him of cold, dark, wet nights on the front, when feet ached and the only light was enemy gunfire ahead. It reminded him of the raised, bickering voices, when Steve and Peggy argued over who would be the one to take on the most dangerous tasks, to run first into battle, to draw fire from the others.

(Bucky was not meant to overhear those conversations—no standard human would have been able to, but back then he hadn’t realized that he wasn’t quite human anymore, not entirely. And afterwards, the argument would resolve into wet kissing noises, and other sounds that made Bucky pull his knapsack over his head in an attempt to drown out all external stimuli.)

But that voice of forged metal was also Steve’s real voice, from before. Arguing with Bucky, _I can do it. I don’t need your help._ Stubborn Steve. The Steve that Bucky loved, and the one that needed him.

Steve needed him again.

“Steve,” Bucky said, or tried to say. His tongue felt like someone had swaddled it in a mass of cotton and then shoved the mess between his teeth. The word was hardly a word, but it was enough for Steve to look over; Peggy was slow on the uptake, unable to hear Bucky but ever-conscious of where Steve’s attention fell.

When Steve looked over, Bucky could see the purple on his face, bloody fractures healing.

He remembered. The feel of the face crunching under the fist.

No, he corrected himself: the feel of _Steve’s_ face under _his_ fist.

He didn’t mean to say it a second time, but he did, gasping a bit from the effort it took to speak: “Steve.”

 

* * *

 

_**PEGGY** _

Peggy stepped back. She didn’t mean to—she trusted Steve that Barnes was no longer a threat—but Steve rushed across the room with such speed that she could not help but flinch.

By the time she blinked, caught herself, Steve was already kneeling at Barnes’s bedside. Their fingers were intertwined above the coverlet, and she had to admit it looked like they belonged that way.

Peggy had never been a jealous woman. She knew her value, and found that she fell out of love (just as quickly as she had fallen in) the second a potential partner expressed any interest elsewhere. It had been this way with Angie.

But not with Steve. Because she felt—truly believed—that there was Her Steve and Barnes’s Steve. Steve, so focused and singular in this affections, had made the grave error of falling in love twice as if he had two lives to give.

If anyone did have a shot at two lives, it should be Captain America. She had seen him sacrifice his life once to save the world, and she was beginning to suspect that, in the time they spent apart, he had done that again at least once more.

Still staring at the bedside reunion, Peggy belated realized that Barnes and Steve were murmuring, too quietly for her to hear. She could see their lips moving, watch their faces slowly change, but heard nothing. This was a private moment, then. Not for her. Steve didn't even glance back as she slowly backed out of the room and closed the door behind her.

 

* * *

 

_**STEVE, ONE HOUR LATER** _

“Are you sure you feel up to it?” he asked.

“Steve, I gotta piss,” Bucky said. “I’m not gonna do it in Stark’s bed.”

“Alright, but go slow,” Steve said, helping Bucky lean up slowly. They had removed Bucky’s shirt to extract Peggy’s bullet and stitch him up, but it hadn’t been apparent when Bucky was lying down under the covers. There had been apologies, and wasted breath on clearing up the recent past.

But now, Steve couldn’t stop putting his hands all over Bucky. With the excuse of helping him sit up, he was running entire hands all over Bucky’s bare bicep, his shoulder, even at one point cupping his jaw. How that passed for a casual gesture, Steve was immediately unsure; he felt his face redden.

 

* * *

 

 

_**BUCKY** _

“You know,” Bucky huffed, lightly pushing Steve aside to stand on his own. “You were right.”

“I was?” Steve looked elated, the stupid bastard. Bucky grinned, anticipating the joy of wiping that ecstatic look off his face.

“Yeah. Being treated like an invalid is fucking _annoying_.”

Steve grimaced at this, and opened his mouth with what Bucky was sure was some self-important speech about the proper procedure for soldiers’ recuperation after battle. But Bucky was faster. He raised a hand to physically hush Steve, to place fingers over Steve’s mouth.

Something in him had wanted this, all along. He had never stopped wanting Steve, not after years of conditioning both by society and by Hydra, both evil in their own way. Not after that first time, when they were both fourteen, and discovered how the air charged between the two of them. They had always said it was nothing, it was practice for girls, it was just the feeling of being a hot-blooded man, it was just an outlet—and once, Bucky had even loudly announced, while atop Steve, the list of girls he was also fucking “on the regular.” As if that made Steve just another warm body, another on the rotation of Brooklyn Casanova Bucky Barnes, a man who shared his bed with anyone and everyone.

But it had _never_ been that, not for Bucky. He hadn’t truly realized this until Steve had looked at Peggy in that bar. Steve had always been his, the one constant. Steve was who he came home to, after a date, after a night out, after a long shift. Steve was _home_. But then, watching Steve burn for someone else, it made Bucky alight with something wild and desperate.

Suddenly, Steve Rogers wasn’t _his._

Steve had never promised him this, of course, but all those kisses, all those nights spent together: it felt like a promise. 'Til the end of the line.

In that moment, though, reaching out to physically shush Steve, Bucky misjudged his strength. He stumbled into him, pressing chest to chest, fingers hitting Steve’s mouth in a way that could not have been pleasant. One even dripped between the lips; Bucky felt teeth.

“Sorry,” Bucky said, with an attempt at a light laugh. Dear lord, his fingers were still caressing Steve’s lips. _Get ahold of yourself, Barnes._ “I’ll go . . . wizz.”

 

* * *

 

_**STEVE** _

For the forty-five seconds that Bucky peed, Steve thought about the starting lineup of the '41 Mets and cursed himself for wearing sweatpants.

 

* * *

 

 

**_BUCKY_ **

“Guess I should get back to bed, huh,” Bucky said, trying to not-obviously grip the doorframe in an attempt to remain upright. It worked for five seconds. Then the metal arm shattered the wood with a very audible crack, pitching Bucky forward and off-balance yet again. “Oops.”

“Come here,” Steve said, still somewhat pink about the ears. He guided Bucky with two firm hands on elbows to the nearest seat, a padded backless chair in front of the vanity. “Let me take a look at your wound.”

Peggy, ever the perfect shot, had gotten Bucky at the base of his neck, an injury that would have paralyzed a human instantly. Bucky was grateful. Peggy didn’t know he had, moments before her appearance, fought through years worth of brainwashing. She shot to kill, because she worried that Steve would be killed. Bucky would have done the same to her. Gladly.

Bucky shook himself. He would get nowhere, hating the woman that Steve had chosen to share his life with. What life could they even had, the two of them, “confirmed bachelors?” He wanted Steve to be happy. That meant a wife and kids and a house in the 'burbs. (Just not New Jersey, Bucky internally pleaded. He would go through literally hell for Steve but even _he_ had limits.)

No, his best bet was to bury his feelings deep and be happy for Steve. To try, in his own way, to love Peggy as he loved Steve. As a friend.

At the moment, his “friend” had pulled up the desk chair and sat directly behind Bucky. His warm hands, absurdly large, impossibly gentle, lifted the bandage from Bucky’s back. He felt those fingers tracing the nape of his neck, raising goosebumps along his arms, sending a shiver down his spine.

“Sorry,” Steve murmured, feeling the tremors but apparently misunderstanding their origin. Bucky heard a scraping noise and felt Steve’s chair pull closer. Their knees knocked, thighs brushing; Steve was straddling him from behind, pulling closer.

The breath caught in Bucky’s throat.

“It’s healing nicely,” Steve said, except he was so close that it wasn’t a “said”—it was a breath directly into Bucky’s ear.

Bucky, master spy and covert operative with thirteen confirmed kills, the man who swore to be “just friends,” said, “ _Hnnng_.”

“You okay?” Steve asked. “The pain getting to you?”

 

* * *

 

 

_**STEVE** _

He leaned around Bucky’s broad shoulders to get a look at his face. And yes, he could see the pain in Bucky’s eyes, something twisting his face. It was the Winter Soldier look, a look Steve had seen before. Bucky, trying to lie, to push down deep pain even deeper.

“It’s okay to admit you’re hurting,” Steve said as gently as possible. He hated himself for coddling Bucky, but it was his fault what had happened. How had he not remembered the Helicarrier? How had he not remembered Bucky throwing him down an elevator shaft?

He wanted to make Bucky feel better, to show him that it wasn't Bucky's fault. Without thinking what he was doing, he leaned forward, and gently pressed a kiss to Bucky’s shoulder.

 

* * *

 

 

_**BUCKY** _

Bucky fell out of the chair, forwards, clipping his forehead on the vanity. _Smooth move, Barnes._

 

* * *

 

 

**_STEVE_ **

“Fuck, Bucky?” Steve cursed aloud, then internally: superhuman reflexes, and he was only thinking with his cock. He let his friend—not his _friend_ , his . . . his Bucky—nearly crack open his skull. All because that skin was too much to bare. Had this been how Bucky felt, when Steve was suddenly doubled in size? A hunger, also doubled, the desire to touch every bit of flesh uncontainable, unstoppable, unsurvivable.

Steve fought the urge to knock his own skull into something hard in self-afflicted punishment. Had the serum not just made him a superhero, but some sort of succubus?

Sure, he had slept with Bucky before. They said it wasn’t that, that it was just something crude and bodily, something for then, a temporary fix. But it was never that way for Steve.

He loved Bucky.

And he loved Peggy. It wasn’t like a heart split in two. It was like: two separate hearts. Like the love in him had also doubled. He had felt like he was bursting with love when he looked at Bucky. Peggy had just brought even more love, until he felt stretched inside. A larger infinity of love. A beautiful, terrible problem.

 

* * *

 

_**PEGGY** _

“I heard a crash,” Peggy said, throwing open the door to find Barnes on the floor, bleeding moderately from a gash on his forehead as Steve looked on in nearly-comical shock, hands pulling at his hair.

“Honestly,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You two dolts are perfect for each other.”

She glared daggers at Steve until he left, and then, without his doe-eyes staring on, tended to Barnes’s head wound. It was the least she could do. She knew Steve loved him, so she would love him, too.

They would have to learn to share. After all, there were two of them, and only one of Steve.

 

* * *

 

_**74°10'52.7"N 83°35'35.8"W** _

_**(SOMEWHERE IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN)** _

The landscape was shifting. It always did, this time of year.

The process was loud. Ice cracked and fell away, crashing into the waves that had battered it so relentlessly. Entire masses of ice the size of large cargo ships broke away, to reform later into new shapes when their time came.

In that world, everything froze and melted in its own time. It was the way of things.

And in that moment, something was thawing.


	7. Priorities

_**STEVE** _

He promised himself that he would stay a safe distance away, give Bucky some space. So there he was, standing on the other side of the kitchen island, as far as he could. Gabe was gone, politely excusing himself so they could "figure shit out." As Peggy had cleaned Bucky's head wound, Steve had cleaned the kitchen obsessively. There was no trace that they had brawled the day before.

Bucky glared at Steve over a cup of coffee, his head wrapped in gauze. He looked, Steve realized, like an amnesia patient in a soap opera. It made Steve want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Then again, looking at Bucky _at all_ made Steve want to laugh and cry at the same time.

"Quit looking at me like that," Bucky griped.

"Is he doing that to you, too?" Peggy asked, her voice light. She was pretending to stir her tea, as if her attention was absorbed by that. A smart comment made, she gave Steve an innocent look and also raised her mug to her lips.

"Guys, that's really not . . . fair," Steve tried.

"What?"

"C'mon," Steve said, realizing he sounded abashed. And that was admitting wrongdoing. Something he know Peggy and Bucky would pounce upon.

"Oh, leave him alone, Carter," Bucky cut in, feigning a headache. At least, Steve hoped he was dramatically pretending to massage his temple. "He's Captain America. He has't done anything wrong in his life, ever."

"Except crashing that plane," Peggy said lightly, into the top of her tea.

Steve froze, sensing the sudden shift in energy that rolled through the room like the beginning of a thunderstorm. He looked over, slowly, or at least slowly to him. When he finally met Bucky's eyes—trying not to look sheepish, trying not to admit weakness—Bucky had just slammed his mug down on the counter, sloshing hot coffee over the just-cleaned surface.

"Repeat transmission," Bucky said, hollowly.

Peggy wheezed out a laugh at his strange diction; Steve saw her check herself just as Steve acknowledged it. Bucky, under stress, falling back on his conditioning.

"I—I had to," Steve said, haltingly, holding up his hands in innocence. It looked, he realized quickly, like he was defending himself physically from Bucky, putting up physical boundaries. He shoved his hands into his pockets, but couldn't help but take a step back. Bucky had always been able to glare murderously, but very rarely did he use it on Steve.

But the full force of the homicidal glare had even Captain America backpedaling.

" _You had to_?" Bucky repeated, his voice hollow.

"Oh dear," Peggy said lightly into her tea. She flicked her eyes over to Steve, and he instantly understood her. "I suppose we all need to be caught up, don't we."

 

* * *

  

_**PEGGY** _

And just like that, Steve seemed to crumble. Whatever resolve he had had gone out of him, like candle hissing out in the wind.

"Yes," he said, to Barnes. "I crashed the plane. It was full of _bombs_. Bombs that would have gone off and killed millions."

"And how did you find your way back here?" Peggy pressed.

Steve shot her a look, glancing at Barnes. This clearly meant: _Can't we wait until he feels better?_

Peggy shot one back, which said: _Better to get this done sooner rather than later. Plus, he's still recovering so he's less likely to nearly decapitate you with that murder arm._

Well, she hoped it said as much.

"I'm right here," Barnes growled, eyes flicking back and forth to take in their silent exchange.

"Buck—"

"Answer the question," Barnes said.

"I—"

"I know there's something you aren't telling me. Us," Peggy quickly amended, catching the waves of anger rolling off Barnes. "In these years—"

"It . . . " Steve sagged once again. "It wasn't that way for me. I didn't just dig myself out of the ice . . . "

Barnes bristled at the word—Peggy supposed he knew how that felt, the aching cold, and she shivered herself at the idea of finding Steve in something like where they had found Barnes.

"Did they get you, too?" Barnes ask, his voice sharp and cold as moonlight.

"No, Buck, nothing like that," Steve said. "It was . . . SHIELD."

"I didn't see any reports," Peggy cut in. She felt herself flush with anger, with understanding. "Did Howard—?"

"No, Peg, he didn't keep anything from you. It wasn't . . . it wasn't this SHIELD."

"Explain. Now," Barnes barked out. That was his new voice, the harshness of a heartless operative, but Steve responded to it.

"I woke up in a SHIELD facility," Steve said, eyes fixed on the splotch of coffee still spreading on the counter, from when Barnes had slammed his mug so long ago. "The director, he told me . . . that I had been asleep for seventy years."

"Why would Dooley tell you that?" Peggy cut in, but something in this was clicking deep in her brain, below conscious level. The thoughts were there, falling int place, making her hands shake. But still, the conclusion felt just out of grasp.

"Because it had been," Steve said, finally meeting her eyes, and she could see the torture that he was trying to hide, the redness around his eyes. "It was 2013. Everything was different, Peg, it was awful."

"Okay," Barnes said, voice resolute. "We're calling Stark, we're getting your head checked out. Hydra, they must have—"

"No," Steve said, looking over at him. "Bucky, it was 2013. It was. And I was alone. I lived there, for ten years. By myself, trying to . . ."—he swallowed thickly—" . . . to figure things out. And then I found _you_. It was almost too late, but I found you."

His eyes found Peggy's again, and his full lips were trembling.

"And I lost you Peg," he whispered, and now his cheeks were wet. "I went to your funeral. You were gone, Peg. But then, Tony—Howard's son—he invented time travel. And I knew I couldn't lose you again."

 

* * *

 

  
_**BUCKY**_

Peggy took a step back at that, horror in her eyes. A hand went to her mouth, the fingers shaking. But Bucky didn't move.

"So you time-traveled back, to now," Bucky said. His voice sounded alien, and he wasn't sure he was speaking. This happened, when he had been the Asset, feeling like he was outside his own body. The Asset welcomed it, but for Bucky, it was terrifying. A sensation of his consciousness floating above a body he couldn't move.

It was absurd. Time travel? Two thousand and thirteen? Howard, having a son?

But Steve, the terror on his face, made it all sound true.

"Yeah," Steve said, not taking his eyes off Peggy. "I came back to you."

 

* * *

 

  
_**STEVE**_

The slam of the guest bedroom door and a burst of wind alerted Steve that Bucky had run off, back to the privacy of his room. Out of anger? Jealousy? Fear of what Steve had become?

"Go to him," Peggy said, her voice thick. Steve batted at his own face, but Peggy was swallowing it all back, her cheeks dry.

"I—I can't lose you again," Steve said, reaching for her.

"I'm not going anywhere," Peggy said, and there was that stubborn tilt to her mouth that gave Steve hope. "He needs you now."

 

* * *

 

  
_**PEGGY**_

On the other hand, Peggy needed to be alone. As Steve left the kitchen, she let herself fall apart, a sob escaping her. Without willing it, her body doubled over the kitchen island. Steve, and his super-hearing, made her press a hand to her mouth to stifle the sobs. She would stay quiet then, go to pieces while he was distracted.

She wasn't sure if she was crying for the life that Steve had without her, or the fact that he had lost her— or that he had come back. Or the unkindness of the world, or elation that it had changed, or that Steve had chosen her.

It was everything, and none of it.

She was crying for _Steve_. Those same tears that he had interrupted on the Brooklyn Bridge. She loved him so much it hurt, and that's what tore the sobs out of her body, violently, like poison out of a wound. She loved him, and she had lost him. Who had come back in his place?

 

* * *

 

_**STEVE** _

"Buck." He went to knock at the door, but from the gentlest tap it swung open on its hinges.

Bucky stood by the far wall, back to the door. But Steve could see the strong emotion in how his shoulders rose and fell with labored breath.

Steve didn't repeat himself. He knew Bucky heard, knew Bucky could sense his presence. He waited for Bucky to speak.

He didn't have to wait long.

"Where are you, Steve?"

"Right here, Buck. It's me, I swear, it's just . . . been a few years. But I'm back, I'm _here_."

"That's not what I meant," Bucky said, turning to look at Steve. And finally Steve could see the mask of pain on Bucky's face, and the wetness around both his eyes. Apparently, there was a lot of that going around. Steve's heart squeezed. He was causing a lot of pain, upsetting this timeline.

"Bucky?" His voice broke.

"Where are you, the Steve that's here, the Steve that I grew up with, the idiot who crashed his plane, I want to know where the fuck _he_ is."

Steve should have taken a step back at that, at the unbridled rage that Bucky was spewing. But instead he stepped closer, until there were hardly a few feet between them.

"Buck . . . I . . . he's in the Arctic somewhere. I—he— _we_ crashed the plane before it got to New York. It was gonna kill a lot of people, Buck, we had to do it."

Bucky waved that away.

"But—you know where he is," Bucky said, between heavy breaths.

"Yeah, I mean, not exactly, but I saw the SHIELD file, and with some research into the ocean currents . . . "  
  
"But you could have rescued him. Rescued you. Yourself," Bucky said.

'Yeah, sure, Buck, we could do that."

"Could. But didn't. You chose," Bucky said, "to rescue me first."

He took a step closer to Steve, closing the space between them.

Steve wanted to flinch, because he saw Bucky's fists, both of them, coiling ready to strike.

But this was something that mattered more than any physical pain. Steve had felt it all—the sharpness of broken bones after a bully in an alleyway smashed his arm in a dumpster; the fire of not being able to breathe, of asthma gripping around his lungs; the agony of the serum pull apart every cell and burning them into something new. The pain of Chitauri; the feeling of gunshots from Bucky's gun; Ultron's kick; Panther claws; Stark's blast; Thanos's fist.

But nothing compared to the pain of seeing one of the two people he loved in pain.

"Yes," he said, as firmly as he could despite the strong emotion gripping him. And then, when he could get more of his voice behind it, "Yes, Bucky. I came for you first."

"You fucking idiot," Bucky said harshly. He hadn't stopped moving forward, and he was within arm's reach.

But Steve didn't care.

He just closed his eyes. He felt Bucky's hand on the back of his head, and then.

And then Bucky's lips on his.

 

* * *

 

_**BUCKY** _

He was kissing Steve.

How much his life had changed, within a few days. And all because Steve had chosen him over _himself_.

It began abruptly, lips mashing together with no time for gentleness, all urgency to taste Steve. He went to break away after a moment but Steve surged back towards him, and his hand on the back of Steve's head, buried in his close-cropped hair, was holding him back as much as it was drawing him close.

And then, Steve's hand. Steve held Bucky to him, a broad hand on the base of his spine, cupping his hip.

Bucky wasn't sure if he was laughing or crying, but a noise something between the two escaped him. He pressed both lips to Steve's upper lip, gently pulling at him. And then, a breath, and he licked along the opening of Steve's mouth, where lips had parted, sliding his tongue in slightly.

Steve growled, and Bucky felt that noise, vibrating through Steve's chest and as the front of Steve's trousers pressed urgently against Bucky's thigh.

Bucky pulled that top lip back with him as he drew back, and then Steve was hot on his mouth, giving chase, both their lips open so wide they weren't quite sure where one person ended and the other began.

Steve's hand was creeping along the base of Bucky's spine, caressing to bring the base of their hips even closer together.

And, god, Steve was grinding against him slightly, hips rolling. His hand snuck under Bucky's shirt, and Bucky realized he too was rocking into Steve, that same rhythm on his body. Steve's fingers explored the base of his back, not really going anywhere. Just pawing, with that animal need, nails almost scratching along Bucky's back.

 

* * *

 

_**STEVE & BUCKY** _

Someone moaned. It couldn't be clear who; they could both feel the sound building within their own bodies, reverberating among their ribs as if they were one.

Hands pressed to backs, pressed over shoulder blades, rippling muscles. Shirts were in the way, so the hands pulled them up, around, not quite getting over heads, just moving out of the way. As fingers traced the shape of muscles, the v-shape down angling below the waist of pants and under hips, both felt the giddiness, laughter bubble in their throats.

They weren't sure who drew back first, but they both understood: There was still work to do.

For Steve, the mission came first. As much as he burned for Bucky, he knew that there was a job to do. That was the order of things: the world, then Bucky and Peggy tied for second, then Steve.

For Bucky, though, he was proving the opposite: that Steve came before the world. With two Steves, that unfortunately meant that one Steve was his world, and the other one was just above.

 

* * *

 

_**STEVE, LATER** _

"We'll get him tomorrow," Steve said.

"You mean you," Peggy said. She seemed sedate, but her voice was strong and her eyes were dry. Steve wasn't sure how she had pieced it together, what mental gymnastics she had completed while he was with Bucky. But she was calm.

"Yes," Steve said.

"I should turn in," Bucky said.

"C'mon," Steve said, gripping Bucky's upper arm and squeezing fondly.

 

* * *

 

_**PEGGY** _

Watching Steve go down that hall, to Barnes's bedroom, Peggy was sure that her world was going to crumble all over again. Instead, she walked to her bedroom, climbed into bed, and shut off the light.

 

* * *

 

_**BUCKY** _

"Are you sure you're alright?" Steve asked, leaning in the doorway to the bedroom with arms crossed as if unable to cross the threshold

Bucky paused in the middle of brushing his teeth, white foam dripping. It was kind of Steve to follow him, to explain where the washing up supplies were stashed. But Bucky was a big boy.

"Yeah," Bucky said. He tried not to look murderous as he spat into the sink. "I gotta rest up. Tomorrow's a big day."

Steve smiled, gently.

"Okay, Buck. Goodnight. Love you."

"Yeah, yeah," Bucky muttered, like it was the same as all those years ago, when they would say _I love you_ as hellos and goodbyes, when he and Steve seemed to share one body and one mind, when the words really didn't mean anything, had been overused to the point of meaning nothing. But the second Steve shut the door, Bucky felt his face break into a smile.

 

* * *

 

_**STEVE** _

The light was off in their room, and Peggy was already under the covers.

He slid in, as quietly as he could, in case she was asleep. Still, he found his body bending around hers, big spoon.

She said nothing, but her body arched to his, her curves nesting perfectly into his body. While there were no words for this, Steve responded by sliding his hands over her waist, nestling them around her belly. She was in a silk nightgown, and the sensation was overwhelming, like gliding through water.

Again Peggy rolled her hips, pressing back into him, and she was definitely not asleep. Steve pulled himself closer still, lips brushing along her neck until her hair was along his lips and he was breathing the scent of her, tasting it as he pressed lips to her neck.

 

* * *

  

_**PEGGY** _

  
His hand had found the widest part of her hip, and then with so much force that it was nearly painful ran down to the smallest part of her waist and gripped. It was like she was falling off a cliff and he was trying to save her.

No, she realized, it was like he felt as if _he_ were teetering along the edge, and she was the only thing that could anchor him.

And that was true, she realized, but also what had brought him back all this way, through all this time. The most romantic gesture, choosing her over his entire world. There was no questioning it now: Despite the sharpness, the way the seventy years had worn him down, this was still her Steve.

And he was here, right here, clinging to her desperately, lavishing affection of every inch of her body. He loved her desperately, more than anything, more than time itself.

The motion in her hips was too fevered now to be gentle, and Steve was mimicking the rhythm in his sharp gasps, noises that were quickly gaining the breath behind them to become moans.

He could come this way, she knew, and he could feel that in him along where she was grinding.

Quickly, catching him mid-moan, she flipped to press her mouth to his, so that she caught the noise between her lips. It rolled along her tongue.

His hand, the one that had been a vice around her waist, was now on her upper thigh, and she pulled her hips so that the rest of them fit together like puzzle pieces, a gasp escaping her lips as they interlocked thighs.

 

* * *

  

_**STEVE & PEGGY** _

Which of them was more desperate for this?

Steve was pulling at the top of her nightgown to free her breasts, and she quite literally tore his shirt down the middle, a satisfying ripping noise that made her grin. She marveled at the perfection of his bare body just as he marveled at hers.

And finally, they simultaneously came to the conclusions that the rest of their clothing was a mere nuisance as well, and so were bedclothes.

Whipping her hair over one shoulder, Peggy clambered atop.

"Wait," Steve breathed. "Are you sure you want this?"

"You're already halfway inside me," Peggy gasped out, taking a moment to try to lower herself even further. Steve watched how the small movement twisted her face, the momentary look of shock and pleasure that gripped her. She composed herself as much as possible, still panting somewhat, short breaths that filled just the top of her lungs. Steve enjoyed the view. Finally able to speak again, she continued, "Is now really the time to ask?"

"It's always a good time to ask," Steve said as sincerely as possible. Something mischievous crossed his face. "And that's not even close to half."

Peggy meant to say something smart, but at that moment she found herself unable to say much at all.

She did, however, make sure to scream _yes_ as loud as she could, as many times as she could, until Steve joined her.

 

* * *

  

_**BUCKY** _

Howard Stark, as in all things, had expensive taste in pillows. Bucky was pleased to find that it made a much better sound cushion above his head, far superior to a backpack. He wondered if he could fall asleep this way.

As he lay in bed alone, considering all that had happened and was yet to happen, he found himself suddenly nervous.

Having one Steve back in his life brought enough problems. How had he been foolish enough to think that having two Steves would be a good idea?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy weekend everyone!
> 
> Sorry in advance—there'll be a brief delay before I'm able to post the next chapter as I'll be traveling. Hope you all enjoyed and that this chapter is enough to tide you over!


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